Two nights ago I had a nice little dream about H. Last night, it was contrasted by a strange, mute, old man with a long white beard who was showing me around a beautiful garden with an unusual tree in its center as my dream of the night.

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In other news, I received a strange letter in the mail yesterday -- No return address and had something bulky inside it. Well, I opened with caution, care and curiosity. Inside was just a deck of cards, and when I saw the design on the back of the cards advertising a poker professional's website, I think the mystery was solved.

Months ago, I gave my mailing address to that guy through his website hoping to win his contest with the prize of a round trip flight to Las Vegas to meet him and talk poker. Well, I think the website also said something along the lines of the first thousand who signed up for that contest would get a gift.

I think the deck of cards was my gift. Although I would have liked at least a form letter with the cards saying that it was a gift for being one of the first thousand people or something.

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For the last month or so, I've been hearing about Second Life. As near as I can figure it's sort of an updated version of the old Sims game with real people being the Sims and as I learned yesterday real money can be made in the game too.

I heard a lady actually made a million dollars in real United States cash through the game.

However going by the axiom that when the mainstream media report about investments it's too late to make money that way, so it's too late. Not only did I hear about the lady on the radio, when I logged on to the internet last night, the splash screen of news I get as I log on had the story too.

I'm both creeped out by what little I understand about Second Life and also intrigued a bit too. Ah, lets move on.

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The Bears are going to the Super Bowl! I'm already tired of hearing the old Super Bowl Shuffle song that has been played on the radio for the last several weeks. I guess I better brace myself to hear it some more. Although I am happy the Bears are going to the big game this year. Too bad I turned down the one and prob. only Super Bowl party invite I got this year from a friend of H when I was down there over New Years.

Although on the plus side of hearing the old Super Bowl Shuffle, I got to hear Sweetness in that song. Walter Payton is prob. about the only professional football player I truly respected. I wonder what he would have made of his retirement if he had lived.

Not that I have any experience in it but ...

I don't belong to any fantasy groups (although living in today's world sometimes resembles a waking nightmare) so I cannot say anything about their effect. I suppose that they can be therapeutic as long as one can distinguish conventional reality from fantasy, but there seems to be a temptation to make the fantasy life an escape from one's less exciting real-time life and in that way the fantasy games can become empty and addictive like a mind drug.